Brinley had a rough night Sunday night. The spasms kept her up most of the night. David went home to be with Taylor and Jade. We finally got a couple hours of sleep at about 3 or 4, then they were in the room at 6 talking and taking blood. We talked to the resident pediatrician who explained what they would be looking for with the MRI. He said there were many possibilities, some simple to solve and some quite scary. They suspected a bone infection first, since that was the most common diagnosis. It would show up on the MRI. That was what `I figured it would be, and she would just get some anti-biotics for a few days and be fine. He said they would go through the list one by one if it was not a bone infection.

She was sedated for the test that morning, and very soon after the test, David was down getting some food, and three doctors came in to talk to me. Had I know what they were going to say, I would have asked that they wait for my husband. They started talking in doctor lingo, so I picked out words like "her bone marrow doesn't look good", "suspecting tumor", lots of scary words. I gathered that they were thinking it might be cancer, but I didn't realize how strongly the felt it was. Finally David came back and saw my face and knew something was wrong. They explained it to him too, then I asked what the chances were that is was cancer. He said 80-90%. That hit us like a truck. I knew at that point that she had it. I didn't need the official diagnosis. They stood there watching us break down for a minute, then FINALLY left and let us have a moment alone. Our sweet little Brinley had a disease in her little body that could take her life. It was devastating.

The oncologist came in later and talked about it a little. He said she would have to get a bone marrow biopsy to determine if it was leukemia. It is a cancer of the blood, but all the blood cells are made in the bone marrow. He said her bone marrow looked very blotchy when it is supposed to look solid. So they would take two samples of bone marrow, one from each hip. That reduced the risk that they will draw marrow from a good spot, and get a false negative result. He said they would look immediately on the slide and may be able to see if it is leukemia, but they probably wouldn't know for a few days. That test would be Tuesday.